BlogWorks Team

And we really, really love seeing client results when we’re using one of our favourite techniques.

What we call re-loving old posts.

The idea is simple…

If you have been blogging for a while, your inventory of posts will have been indexed by the search engines. In other words, Google will have decided how to “rank” your blog posts against all the other posts about similar topics.

This is why some of your posts show up on the first page of search results and some on the 13th page.

Updating old content can fix that.

Let’s start with why updating old posts works.

Why you need to update your old content to increase blog traffic

The strategy of updating old content to increase blog traffic works best if you’ve already published at least two dozen blog posts. This post explains in detail how to use this strategy.

Here are the most important reasons why we love this strategy. Book a call today to learn if this can work for your business.

1. Better click-through. When you update that old content you improve your click-through rate – the volume of people who choose to click on your article – simply because the date is more current.

2. Google likes fresh content. One of the many factors Google looks for in posts is how fresh is your content. When you update your old posts you also will update the publish date. More recent equals more results.

In this example, 6 of 7 search results were posted in the last 12 months

3. Improve your title. Your post title tells readers what the article is about but also should attract and intrigue the reader enough to want to jump in. Now is the time to turn that boring headline into a killer question, or use any of the 5 techniques described in this article.

According to Convince and Convert, a great title is clear (what will I get if I read this?) but intrigues the reader to dive in. Remember, you are competing with everything else on their phone or laptop – you need to get and keep their attention!

The best headlines are about 8 words and 70 characters

4. Fix grammar and spelling. Updating your old posts gives you a chance to catch those spelling mistakes or tighten up the grammar. A quick improvement is to remove the word “that” – it will make your sentence read better and improve the flow of your post.

5. Link to “revenue” pages. Here’s a quick test: in the first third of your article does you post link to at least one “revenue” page, like a product or service page? When you update the old post, also update internal links to your site.

6. One less article to post. Updating an old post takes a fraction of the time it takes to write a new one. Many of our clients combine one new article (we do that as well!) with one updated article each month.

Now that we’ve looked at the reasons, let’s look at an example of how one BlogWorks client used this strategy.

The Speaker Exchange

Like many small business owners, Brittanny and Julie at The Speaker Exchange were aware of the value of content marketing, but needed an outsourced solution. They had been using newsletters to stay in touch with their audience.

They reached out to BlogWorks for a solution.

The goal was to create consistent inbound traffic using original blog posts targeted to the event planner audience. At BlogWorks we have a team of local writers, each with specialties.

We write blog posts for a wide variety of wonderful clients ranging from leadership authors and public speakers to cyber security experts. And in this case, we have writers who know the speaking industry.

The BlogWorks solution

The BlogWorks solution was to write one original post and to update one older post every month, plus promote the blog through social media. In the first 90 days, site traffic was up almost 30%! Even better, Sessions and Pageviews were both up over 20%.

A part of the solution was more consistent blog publishing, but the biggest results was from updating old content with better keywords, headlines, and content.

The client example we shared in this post could be yours(!) Contact us today to learn how to increase your blog traffic by updating old posts.

Liked this post? Got another 5 minutes? Here are 3 more of our most popular posts all about writing blogs:

Dear reader, instead of running off to Google every time you’re unsure we have scoured the lexicon library to help clarify, demystify, enlighten and sort through 21 words that often get misused and abused.

Here we go with our list of incorrectly used words…

1. Advise and advice

First, advise is a verb – the act of giving, while advice is a noun – what you give. A quickest test is to say your sentence out loud, like: “I went to the coach to get advise.”

2. Affect and effect

Not only do these two sound similar they are very often confused (fortunately most people don’t know the difference.) A simple distinction is to use effect if you are making the change happen and affect if you are helping make the change happen. For example: “The CEO’s decision effected a major change in direction.” And “What she said affected my decision to go ahead.”

3. Everyday and every day

This is an easy one to mix up. Doing something every day means you do it every single day, like drinking coffee in the morning.

Meanwhile, everyday means commonplace or normal, like hearing sirens is an everyday event.

4. Along and long

This is an easy one to clarify. Along means moving in a constant direction, like “I was moving along the highway.” While long means a great distance or duration, like “The highway was long and boring.”

5. A while and awhile

This is a tricky one. First, the difference between while and awhile is easy to spot. While refers to a period of time “We talked for a while.”

The word awhile means for a period of time “He waited awhile for his appointment.” Whereas a while can only be used to replace while – a longer period of time.

6. Any way and anyway

Anyway means “nonetheless” or “regardless” as in: “I knew I had to get work done, but checked Facebook anyway.” You can also use anyway to connect a story that’s continuing: “Anyway, I was describing how to write a better blog post…”

Any way means a variety of ways of doing something, or in any manner. “I had so much to get done I tackled my list any way possible.”

Anyway, let’s get onto #7.

7. Fewer and less

Here’s a trick for this one: use fewer when referring to items you can count, like “fewer homes” or “fewer car sales.”

Use less when referring to items you can’t count, like “time”, or “income.” There are some conventions with fewer and less: we tend to use less with time, money and weight.

8. Insure and ensure

This is an easy one to remember: insure refers only to insurance. Ensure means to make sure. So you might want to ensure you are insured.

9. Irregardless and regardless

This is an easy fix: don’t use irregardless. You might find irregardless in text (and certainly hear some well-meaning folks use the word), but it’s not commonly accepted and just sounds wrong.

10. Principle and principal

My trick to remembering the difference between these is that my Principal at school should be my “pal” or friend, as in principal. Whereas principle is a guideline or rule: “…basic scientific principles.”

Principal can also refer to the amount borrowed on a load, the most important item in a particular set “The principal account makes up 65 percent of our revenues.”

11. Stationary and stationery

This is an easy one: you write on stationery. When something doesn’t move it is stationary.

12. It’s and its

It’s is a contraction of it is or it has. Use it’s to move a sentence along and to give a more casual feeling to your writing.

Its is about possession “The store increased its prices.” An easy test is to try removing the apostrophe and see how it sounds: “It’s raining” becomes “It is raining.” (which sounds better).

By the way, there is no use for its’.

13. They’re and their

This is similar to #12 and many other incorrectly used words, they’re is a contraction of they are, whereas their is all about ownership.

14. Who’s and whose

Who’s is a contraction that means either who is or who has. “Do you know someone who’s living in California?”

Whose is possessive. “You and whose army?”

15. You’re and your

Here’s another contraction and one you probably get right: you’re and your.

You’re means you are and your is about ownership “Your car.” “Your home.” So, “If you’re going to your home to get your car you’re doing the right thing!”

16. Accept and except

Here’s an easy one…

These two words sound the same but are quite different: accept is to receive, except signifies and exclusion. So “I accept the offer, except I won’t want it for another month.”

17. In regard to

The only distinction to note here is that the expression In regard to is singular. To write “In regards to” is incorrect.

18. Ironic vs. Coincidental

Here’s an interesting distinction: if something happens at the same time “I was about to go see her when she showed up at my house.” that’s a coincidence. But, when there’s a reversal involved, like “When we returned from our trip to Mexico we learned the weather was actually better at home.” That’s ironic.

Comedian Ed Byrne writing about Alanis Morisette’s song, Ironic: “The only ironic thing about that song is it’s called ‘Ironic’ and it’s written by a woman who doesn’t know what irony is. That’s quite ironic.”

19. Imply vs. Infer

“The implier is the pitcher; the inferrer is the catcher.” Theodore Bernstein, The Careful Writer

To imply is to say something indirectly, like: “The host implied it was time to leave by saying she was tired.” To infer is to gather, deduce, or figure out. “We inferred it was time to leave by the host’s actions.”

The way to remember this one is: a speaker/writer implies, while the listener/reader infers.

20. Adverse and Averse

To be adverse is rarely used to describe people, but more commonly to describe events, effects, trends in the economy, changes in weather, etc: “The new medication has no adverse impacts on health.”

Averse describes people and means to feel opposed or disinclined. “We are not averse to holding another meeting.”

21. Irrespective and respective

Irrespective is not just the opposite of respective. Their meanings are completely different.

Irrespective of means regardless of as in “he continued to blog irrespective of how many readers he had.”

Whereas, respective means relating to two more more things individually”, as in “We all met for lunch and then returned to our respective offices.”

Enjoyed this article about incorrectly used words? Here’s three more of our most popular posts:

A is for Apple

2. Alt tag – Ever wondered why an image shows up in a search? Good chance that’s because some smart cookie added Alt Tags to the image. In WordPress this is super easy (open Media, select the image and add).

3. Anchor post – this the dandy you wrote one late night, half way through a mellow bottle of Merlot, that – for some miraculous reason – attracted loads of attention (from other Merlot lovers maybe?). Tip: make sure you link to your anchor posts in future articles.

4. Anchor text – these are the neat blue links inside one blog post that link to another page. According to SEO gurus at ahrefs “Google uses external anchor text to help understand what your page is about and also, for which keywords it should rank.” So they are 1) important to create 2) super important to get your post found.

5. Article – Easy one – this is task you wrote on your To-Do list last Thursday. And again Friday. Oh, yeah, and on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Oh, damn it! Get writing!

6. Author – Duh.

7. Avatar – This is the person you should have created a perfect description of because you went to that very expensive conference, got SO inspired by the speaker and on the flight home thought “I really need an Avatar!” It’s not complicated: Who is your ideal customer? That’s your avatar.

B is for Boy (okay, okay, it’s also for Blog…and Blogging Terms)

8. Backlink – a link that points to one page, from another page. For example, you can link from your “About” page to a “revenue” page.

9. Blog – A Blog is a gift for the world and for you. Your blog gives you license to write massively irreverent (and occasionally super, super looooong posts) like Tim Urban about whatever got your interest the last time you headed to your local coffee shop. Or to go deep into research, like Maria Popova (7 million readers, thank you very much), or launch an empire like Tim Ferriss (who never returns emails, just saying.)

10. Blogger or Blogging – a person who thinks blogging is a business, when really blogging is a way to make business!

11. Blogosphere – This is the place all good bloggers go to die. Nope, that’s not right. It’s a place where…actually I have no idea, because nobody actually talks that way.

12. Blogroll – This is the list of all your published blog posts. This actually super important, especially if you track traffic, like we do. The good news is you can download this list by simply adding /sitemap_index.xml to the end of your URL (now you have to see ‘U’) and then clicking on (usually) the first link. Cool, huh?

C is for Cataclysmic (and Cat)

14. Calendar – this is what you should be using to plan your next blog post – capiche? Tip: one of our favourite (free) plugins is Editorial Calendar.

15. Category – According to WPBeginner “Categories are meant for broad grouping of your posts. And Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts.” You must categorize your post, tagging is optional.

16. CMS or Platform – CMS stands for content management system. WordPress is a CMS, so are all the alternatives. Bottom line – you will never use CMS in a sentence.

17. Comments – oh, for goodness sake…I’m not going to insult you with this one. We all know comments are the rare gems we all hope to get!

18. CSS or Stylesheet – has something to do with style sheets and if you have to ask you need to go to ‘O’ and think about outsourcing.

19. Directory – These are strange and mysterious sites that list your blog as authority site worth a visit. According to theblogpressccom, “These are websites which categorize blogs under many different categories.” Good luck with that!

F – it’s too tempting, so we’ll skip this one

H is for being Human with a touch of Humour (while being honest)

20. Header – this is the top image for each post. Your header image should “pulled” with your link and show up in your social media posts.

21. Hyperlink – is the clickable content within a web page (typically colored blue) that takes the user to another page, website, or within part of the same page.

22. HTML – this is short for Hypertext Markup Language – the language used to write web pages. In WordPress, if you select “Text” you can view the html code and make simple changes, like highlighting text with a background color. This is what that would look like (Here are the colour choices)

I is for turning “I” into “you” (or “your”)

23. Index(ed) – indexing is the mysterious process of search engines organizing and prioritizing your blog and the pages on your website. SEO is the art of getting your blog and site pages to “rank” higher (show up on pages 1,2,3, etc).

K is for a Killer post that goes viral (Yes!)

24. Keyword(s) or Keyphrase(s) – is what someone types into a search engine – a single word or phrase. By including those keywords in your blog post you make it easier for search engines to rank your post for that topic.

M is for making money (the thing we don’t talk about, but secretly all want)

25. Meta Description – this is the short block of text readers see when they get their search results. Tip: keep your phrase to 150 characters and include the keywords readers will be searching for.

26. Meta Tags – refers to all the Tags hidden in your html code that tell the search engines what you page is all about and how to categorize that page.

27. Meta Title or Page Title – is the name of the page and is the bold text that shows up on a search results page when you rank in a search engine.

N – sorry Nothing here worth Noting

O – is for Outsourcing – the one thing that will mostly quickly earn you more money(!)

P – is for Procrastination and Perfection—two things that will keep you from Publishing!

28. Permalink – this is the funky URL that shows up in search engines, like this https://yourblogworks.com/start-a-blog-post/ Tip: if you are updating, or republishing a blog post, don’t change the permalink—you will lose any ranking you might have in search engines.

29. Plugin – Just like an app on your phone, a plugin is a piece of software that adds a operation to your website. For example, you can add Yoast to change the SEO settings, Pretty Link to create unique, memorable URL’s, or Editorial Calendar to get a calendar view of all your blog posts.

30. Post – this is just another name for your blog article. You can also call it “great”, “amazing”, “outstanding”, and “awesome” (knock yourself out.)

32. Robots – we all know about WALL-E and R2D2, but there are online robots as well, like the ones that categorize web pages (like your blog post) for search engines.

33. RSS – stands for Really Simple Syndication (now you’ll sound smart at any party) and is the way updated information is fed to sites like Feedly, so your favourite blogs are waitinf for you.

S is for getting social shares of your post (yummy)

34. Sitemap – this is a page on your site that organizes all the pages on your site into a simple list. Search engines use your sitemap in their indexing process. Tip: you can see you sitemap by adding “sitemap_index.xml” to the end of your URL, like this https://yourblogworks.com/sitemap_index.xml (If you don’t have a sitemap consider using Yoast…see #43 below)

35. Social Media Sharing – this is what our team at BlogWorks can do for you! Get the word out and let your social followers enjoy your latest blog post.

38. Tip – if you want to get more business from your blog include 3-4 links in every post to your “revenue” pages.

39. Title or Subject – The title, or headline, of your blog is one of the most important ways to attract more attention and readers.

U – is for those Unicorn posts that get Unbelievable results

40. URL -Smarty pants know that URL is short for Uniform Resource Locator, but we all know the URL is the unique address for every page of your web site. Tip: want to create an easy to remember shortened URL? Check out the free WordPress plug-in called Pretty Link in this article.

W – is for putting your Blog to Work

41. Widget or Module – the little boxes of content (like an offer for a free book) are called widgets (now you know.)

42. WooHoo! – the sound you will make when you see your blog post getting shared across the social channels. You have made it happen!

Y is for…. yellow?

43. Yoast – sounds like toast but is not something you eat. Yoast is a popular SEO plugin that allows you to edit and optimize the SEO of the post and the way the post appears (Meta tag) in search engines.

There’s one more thing you need: an SOP. Huh? No, not an SOB. A Standard Operating Procedure.

To produce the best results, it’s always important to have guidelines, especially if you plan on repeating this action. The best blogs are routinely published, so if you’re going to be churning out a new blog post every month or even every week, a handy SOP can really help you out.

The answer to all three question needs to be YES. If not, go back to the drawing board. Don’t despair, however, as you can probably just tweak your brilliant topic. Here are a few examples.

How to use twitter —– 5 ways Twitter can create traffic to your website

Cats are better than dogs —– How cats have evolved to make you think you’re their owner

Extra ways to make income —- Learn how to make more money so you can afford a trip to Hawaii

Make it SEO friendly

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, basically means when a person tries to google a topic, your blog will have a chance of coming up in the search engine results. The more optimized your SEO is, the higher the ranking of your blog post.

Think carefully. When was the last time you went to page three of search results? Exactly. If your blog post is buried deep on page 10, then casual readers won’t be able to find it.

The most important part of SEO is to come up with a target keyword. For example, this post’s target keyword is standard operating procedure.

Once you have a target keyword, be sure to include it in the following places:

The title

At least one header

A few times throughout the content

At least one image alt text

When you upload a feature image, be sure to fill out the alt text area with your keyword or name of the blog.

Proper Image Formatting

If you’re writing more serious, business blog posts, be sure to include graphs and other analytics.

If you’re writing a social blog, it never hurts to include fun memes.

Be aware of these criteria when selecting an image for your blog post:

Size – too large of a file and your blog page can take too long to load

File type (jpg, png, etc.) – jpg is the most common, but png will work as well

Positioning – make sure the picture doesn’t cut into text or interupt the flow

Branding elements – if you have a logo, use it so that your readers have another point of reference to remember you by

Length guidelines – too short and your readers will wonder why they bothered to click; too long and readers will lose focus.

In general, your posts should adhere to a rough length guideline. Your posts should never be less than 300 words if you hope to rank for a keyword, but you have a better chance around 1500. See this post on the ideal length of a blog post for more info.

Publication date

We are all creatures of habit. If my cat isn’t sitting on my head at 7AM, then there must be something terribly wrong. Pick a time to publish your blog and stick to it. This time should make sense for both you and your readers. Weekday mornings are usually the best.

If you do the bulk of your writing on the weekend, you can always publish at a later date through WordPress.

Final checklist

Think you’re starting to understand what an SOP is? Here’s a recap.

Answer “yes” to three questions above

Target a keyword

Have proper on-page SEO

Use proper imagery and branding

Hit your minimum post length

Publish on time

It’s even a good idea to print out this list and keep it next to your computer. Especially for your first few blog posts, it will be nice to get into a rhythm. Keep writing, and remember to follow your SOP!

Liked this post? Here are more posts about keeping organized while you write.

This post was originally published May 16, 2017 and has been updated with new information, facts and advice. Enjoy!

It’s a no-brainer: Having a Facebook presence is a must. To get the most out of this important social channel you need to first understand the difference between a Facebook Page vs Profile.

Most business owners understand the potential of having a Facebook Page, but understanding the specifics can still be hard figure out. Confused about how your blog can bring you more business? Book a free, confidential call today to learn how BlogWorks can help.

Specifically, many business owners aren’t sure whether to create a Facebook Page or a Facebook Profile.

If you’ve been confused between the two, don’t worry. This post will break down the differences and help you pick the best choice for your business.

Facebook Profile

A Facebook Profile is a personal account assigned to you when you sign up with Facebook.

You’re only able to create one profile, which includes only your personal information – no business information.

Your Facebook Profile is where you connect with family, friends, and colleagues. You’re able to see personal posts and updates from your friends in your newsfeed as well as share your own photos and posts.

Your Facebook Profile is for personal use only and shouldn’t be used for business in any manner.

Note: It’s technically against Facebook Terms to use a Facebook Profile for business.

Facebook Page

A Facebook Page is a page created on Facebook that’s separate from your Personal Profile.

A Facebook Page is set up simply by selecting the “Create a Page” link from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of your Facebook Profile. Once your Facebook Page is set up, you can begin to promote your page to gain more likes.

In order for Facebook users to see your business’s updates in their feed, they must like your page.

If you can help it, start with a business account from the beginning.

Social media Examiner states, “When you go to www.Facebook.com without logging in, there’s a link to “Create a Page” underneath the signup form. This will create a “business-only” account.” This makes your personal profile and your business account easy to keep separate.

Differences between “Like” and “Follow”

You guessed it- Facebook has made things more confusing (again). When you “like” a page, you automatically sign up to “follow” that page, too. This means any updates posted by a Facebook Page will be seen in a person’s newsfeed.

The good news is that individuals can opt to “unfollow” a page, while still “liking” it. While this is still good news for a business, as the more “likes” the better, it’s still important that you have as many people “following” your page as possible.

If people don’t follow your page, they don’t get your updates. And without news updates and blog links, it is far too easy for people to forget about your company.

The reason for someone to “unfollow” your Facebook Page is pretty simple: they don’t like the content of what’s being posted. Either it’s too much and seems like spam, or it’s simply uninteresting.

Bottom line, it’s important that posts from your Facebook Page are interesting and meaningful – you want to keep your customers interested in both your product and your company.

Benefits of a Facebook Page vs Profile

A Facebook Page should be included in every business owner’s marketing plan.

One of the key benefits of Facebook is having access to the social site’s 2.27 billion active users. A well-focused Facebook Page can yield your business more results than a website while costing you less.

Let’s get into more of the Facebook Page vs Profile benefits.

Target Market

Defining and targeting your ideal audience members is easy to do with Facebook. Facebook makes setting up advertising campaigns an easy process and you’re able to measure and track your results with Facebook analytics.

Build Trust

As a business owner, it’s important to build trust and loyalty among your customers. Facebook makes this easy by allowing you to constantly post updates and photos about your business.

The beauty of using a Facebook Page is that you’re able to automate your posts so that you can share great content anytime.

Grow Your Fan Base Quickly

Want to grow your fan base quickly? Facebook lets you throw contests, conduct surveys, and promote coupons as a way to motivate new and current users to connect with your business.

Facebook also allows you to promote posts. If your business is launching a new product or doing a flash sale, a promoted post is a great way to get your fan’s attention.

Market Research

Creating contests and surveys are also a great way to learn what your audience wants so that you can give them more of what they are craving.

By running surveys and contests, you can see which campaigns spike the most engagement. The information you receive back will be invaluable. You can turn it into engaging shareable posts, blog posts, and even products.

Search Engine Optimization

By having a Facebook Page vs Profile, Google will index it for you. That means your business page will show up in Google’s search results.

This makes it easier for customers to easily view your information while also giving it a layer of authority.

Growing Your Facebook Fans

You’re going to want to grow your fan base if you plan to be successful on Facebook.

Your focus should always be on attracting quality fans over quantity. Those who are clicking the like button and don’t feel the need to interact with your page, are not who you want as fans.

Be sure to pay attention to both the number of “likes” and the number of “followers.” If there is a large gap between the two, then you need to increase the quality of your posts.

Good fans will take the time to share your content and buy your products. Just listen to the experts:

He believes, “Even if you only reach a fan with paid ads, you know they are interested in you and are willing to hear from you — as opposed to blindly targeting people, selling your crap.”

Make it Personal

One of the best ways to build a highly-engaged audience is to add personal touches.

This can be done by sharing photos of your team or of your office space. This adds an element of relatability, which builds a bond with your fans. As blogger Neil Patel says, “Not every update you send out on your Facebook Page should sell.”

Share a Mixture of Content

Instead of sharing nothing but photos or blog posts, switch up your content by doing a mixture of both.

Your fans want variety and posting all of one type of content can get boring very fast.

If you’re looking for ways to double the amount of content you have, look for shareable tweets from your blog posts that you can add to some of your photos. This is an easy way to create more content without creating entirely new posts to share.

Apply Your Knowledge

Now that you know the difference between a Facebook Page vs Profile, you’re ready to get started with your Facebook business promotion. Our BlogWorks social plan makes it easy to stay top-of-mind with your fans and save the frustration and time updating your social media channels.

If you’ve been using a personal Facebook Profile to promote your business, it’s time to switch over to a Facebook Page. The value of a Facebook Page is definitely worth it.

“Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.” Barry Schwartz

It was morning at the local grocery store in Southern California. Just like every other Saturday morning.

With one exception.

Before the store opened, researchers had set up a table with an attractive display of local jams for sale. On this Saturday, 24 jams were on display. Consumers would stop, taste one more more of the local products and then either pick up a jar to take to the check out counter or continue on their way.

Then, on following Saturday the same table was prepared, but this time with only 6 varieties of jam. Same store, just fewer options.

Guess which display table led to more sales?

You guessed it – when there are more options, people tend to get overwhelmed and do nothing.

Fewer options is better.

This is also true in business: for example, when faced with too many marketing options you might, in fact, do nothing. Psychologist Barry Schwartz called this the ‘paradox of choice’. And that brings me to marketing. Just like jars of jam, when faced with too many marketing options most people either dabble in a few ideas or do nothing at all.

And it’s getting worse. For the last decade we’ve been inundated with a truck-load of online marketing choices.

Should you build your Facebook followers, post videos on YouTube, learn all about Instagram or plan an affiliate launch?

Or, maybe you should simply reduce your choices and focus on what works?

Blogging works

We love blogging because, unlike most other online marketing strategies, it keeps on working for us. And, despite all the hype of “latest, greatest” social marketing, every year more companies are investing in their blogs.

Your blog will attract new followers, keep you in touch with clients and help convert followers to buyers. Even your old posts keep attracting readers.

And, as much as we like promoting on our social channels, good luck getting people to read an old tweet or watch a two-year old video on YouTube.

So, why not make this your year of the blog?

How to make this the Year of the Blog

Alrighty, you’ve committed to blogging. But you’re feeling a little unsure how to get started. The last time you published a blog post was 5 months ago and that one took you two days to write. Ouch!

At BlogWorks we speak with bloggers every week who have this challenge—they know their blog should be central to their marketing, but they struggle to publish. Just like the Jackson’s 1970’s hit song, “A-B-C it’s as easy as 1-2-3,” blogging can be as easy as following 3 steps.

By the way, “A-B-C” stands for Always Blog Consistently (I’m kind of proud of that one).
1. Set your goals
2. Block the time
3. Follow an SOP

Let’s dig into the details:

1. Set your goals

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” Zig Ziglar

Creating a few meaningful goals for your blog doesn’t have to be complicated or scary.

Start with a few metrics which are important for you, like: site traffic, list size, publishing frequency and
then create the goal based on last year.

For example, if your site traffic last year averaged 1,000 users (unique visitors) to your site your new goal could be to increase site traffic to 1,500/month.

Similarly, if your list size is 800, make a goal to double it this year.

And if you published 10 times last year, commit to 2 posts per month, or 24 posts in the year.

But, don’t stop there. Goals only work if you check on them. At least once a month, fill in a simple spreadsheet with your progress.

Pro tip: At least once a month update your blog goal sheet.

2. Block the time

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”James Clear, Atomic Habits

I have written about time management and productivity for over 10 years. And I’ll let you in on a little secret…

When I’m coaching chronic procrastinators or clients who are tackling huge projects I always recommend one strategy. Are you ready?

Block your time.

Admit it, if you had a 2:00 appointment with your dentist, you’d prepare, leave home and be there on time. Right?

When you block time it becomes an appointment you can’t break.

It’s no different with a scheduled conference call, webinar, sales meeting, or meeting a friend to show them this blog (hint, hint). When we block time for a meeting, we treat that time differently. You can always move that time block, but your writing time should be protected.

Most authors, bloggers, speech writers and other creative people do their best work in the morning, shortly after waking up. That could be a good place to start blocking your blog writing time.

3. Follow your SOP

Creating your first Blog SOP can be as simple as recording all the steps in a Google Doc.

One of the best changes I made to my blogging was to create a Standard Operating Procedure.

Huh?

That’s right, one of the changes that accelerated the growth of this blog and my blog was to document all the steps it took to get my rough draft published and promoted.

Two things happened: 1) I wasted less time trying to muddle my way through all the minutia of WordPress tags, categories, headers, etc. 2) I was closer to outsourcing the $12/hour jobs.

Once I’d written up all the steps (and there were over 30 steps!), it was obvious that a disproportionate amount of time was spent doing non-creative, routine tasks. In fact, I created BlogWorks because of that exercise!

To get started, use Google Docs (it’s easy to share when you are ready to outsource this) and simply list all the steps your blogging process needs. Next, identify repetitive tasks you can outsource. For example, you might want to outsource creating the Featured Image for each post.

Contact us to learn how we can transform your rough draft into a published and promoted post.

Because they set clear goals, and always tell you whether you’re moving towards them or not. Goals and measurement are two crucial elements to success in games, business, and life in general.

Without measurement, you’ll never understand where you’re at or what needs to be done to move you forward. It’s like a game with no clear mission – not fun, and won’t keep you going for long.

Need a better understanding of why it’s important to measure the success of your blog? Here are 3 great reasons:

1. SEO drives thousands of free visitors… but it needs measuring

Keyword ranking is one way to bring more traffic to your blog, but what keywords should you be targetting?

One great way to identify keywords that will bring more traffic is to look at what keywords are currently bringing traffic to your site. Thanks to Google Analytics, you’re able to view your organic search traffic with the click of a button (or two).

You’re able to do this by going to your Channel Groupings report, which can be found by clicking Acquisition > All traffic > Channels.

You’re then able to click on Organic Search which will give you an in-depth report on your organic traffic – and only your organic traffic.

After viewing this data, you can determine the key factors that are contributing to your blog traffic, such as:

Your top landing pages for search traffic

Which keywords are driving the most traffic

Which search engines are sending the most traffic, and more.

As a good rule of thumb, you’ll want to check your organic search results once per week to see what’s increasing and what’s decreasing. This way, you’re not putting time and energy into things that aren’t working well anymore! You can then use this information to help drive traffic to your site, check if your blog posts are reaching your target audience and plan future topics that match what your clients are searching for.

Your analytics also help you determine whether your content is engaging your clients. Metrics like the time spent on your site, the number of page views, how many clicks and comments will give you a great indication of how engaged visitors to your site are, and what type of content they find particularly engaging.

Keep in mind that if your blog falls under the “Seasonal” category, you’re going to have much more traffic when that season rolls around. For example, if your blog focuses on something like “Best Winter Foods,” you’ll gain more traffic in the winter and less in the summer.

Pro Tip: If you want a more accurate measurement of your SEO, try a tool like Ahrefs.

2. Killer Opt-ins are great, but knowing which ones are killer is better

Focus on providing a solution that your readers may have a problem with.

If you can make it quick and simple, even better!

Take, for example, this Opt-in offer by SmartBlogger:

They state the problem that their readers may be having: Making their blog posts go viral. They deliver a quick solution: A cheat sheet that’ll help you create killer headlines to get more eyeballs on your content.

With Google Analytics, you’re able to set up goal conversions to see which Opt-ins are performing the best, as well as which landing page your readers signed up for the Opt-in on.

For example, you may have an Opt-in waiting for readers on your “About Me” page. You may also have an Opt-in on a blog post you’ve recently written.

If your readers decided to Opt-in after reading your blog post, you’ll be able to see that through your goal conversions on Google Analytics. This will aid you in the future and will help you determine which blog posts bring more readers to your site.

3. How to measure your social shares and traffic

There are, of course, other ways to measure the effectiveness of your blog. One tool, in particular, is BuzzSumo.

BuzzSumo allows you to see which of your posts are getting the most shares, but will only show you five results (if you’re using a free version).

Take a look at the screenshot below to see some of the most shared pages on our CEOs personal site, Hughculver.com:

As you can see, his most successful post, The bizarre truth about willpower and keeping promises, has performed really well on Twitter and LinkedIn, while his second most successful post has been more successful on Facebook and LinkedIn. So, not only will you be able to see where your social shares are coming from, you’ll be able to determine which of your articles do best on which platforms.

This does not mean you shouldn’t share your blog posts to each social media website. As you can see from the image above, while traffic varies across platforms for each page, there is traffic from each site. But you can use this information to plan where you might spend additional time and money on further marketing of each article.

That’s all for now, folks! How have you been measuring your blog’s success? Drop us a comment to let us know!

Before you hover over the “Publish” button after completing a blog post, ask yourself: “Did I target the right keywords? Did I correct my grammatical errors and spelling mistakes? Did I remember to use hashtags in my social media posts and tweets to boost my social engagement?”

Today, we’re going to talk about how to use hashtags and their importance to promote your social media posts, tweets and call outs. After reading this article you’ll never forget to add tags again.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Why Hashtags Are So Important

Think of hashtags as keywords for social search engines. When someone is searching Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ for a specific topic, the social media posts with those keyword-rich hashtags will show up first.

To prove how important hashtags are, take a look at the image below provided by HubSpot:

As shown above, you’ll get around 15% moreretweets (or shares) just by adding hashtags to your tweets! Pretty sweet, right? What about Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn? Including hashtags has also been shown to increase the visibility and reach of your social media updates.

That means your content will be in front of new eyeballs daily, which will ultimately attract new viewers to your blog posts and website.

Use Hashtags That Make Sense

While a tag does not need to be a summary of your entire blog post, it does need to make sense.

Your hashtags should be applied to keywords that are relevant to your business and target audience. Think of hashtags as helping your audience find topic matches. Alternatively, you might want to use them to start a conversation around a topic.

How Many Tags Should You Use?

Notice how we didn’t go overboard with tags in the above tweet? Research suggests using only 1 or 2 hashtags per social media post for the best engagement. Any more than two and your engagement actually drops!

Too many hashtags can look spammy to your followers (not to mention ugly and hard to read). Take a look at this image we pulled from Instagram to see what we mean:

This person went from dogs to different colors, to parties, and more. Now, we’re not saying this person didn’t have a colorful sunset beach party with dogs, but their message would have been a lot easier to reach if it contained only a couple of hashtags.

Where To Find Hashtags To Use

Now that you realize just how important it is to use hashtags in your posts, it’s time to implement what you’ve learned.

But… what happens if you can’t think of any relevant tags at the moment? Or you want to be sure that people are actually searching for information on the hashtag you are planning to use.

Never fear! The BlogWorks team researched some of the best hashtag analytic tools!

Sprout Social

Coming up with your own tags can be a lot of work. More often than not, the tags you’re thinking about using have been used previously! Thanks to Sprout Social’s Trends Report, you’ll be able to see what tags have been used in the past, as well as what’s popular now.

Hashtagify

Want to know what tags are trending in your niche this very moment? With Hashtagify, you can search any keyword to find the best tags out there right now. Not only do they give you the best tag, they also populate seven related tags to the most popular one. What a great deal – 8 for 1!

RiteTag

With this hashtag search tool, you can enter any keyword and RiteTag will give you a list of hashtags that contain the phrase. Along with potential hashtags to use, you’ll get helpful data like how many times the hashtag is Tweeted per hour, how often Tweets containing the hashtag are getting Retweeted and more.

Not to mention they’ll clue you in on whether or not people are following the tag you entered. This is an amazing tool that does practically everything for you! Except adding the tag into your post, of course!

Some Parting Words

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of this post.

By now, you should understand just how important it is to use hashtags, how many you should (and shouldn’t) use, and you have a few great tools to find the perfect tags for your blog posts!

In our last post, we covered how to use Facebook and Twitter’s analytics dashboards – as well as what to do with that data.

This time, we’ll be covering the lesser (but still important) beasts…

LinkedIn and Google+.

But first – why should you even care?

Why Social Media Analytics Are Important

Social media analytics is a topic many marketers and brands are obsessed with.

And with good reason.

Simply put, it’s impossible to tell if your social media strategy is working without monitoring it. And, without analyzing your posts, it’s impossible to know what’s working and what’s not.

Social media isn’t just about creating what you think is great content. It’s about continuously monitoring that content to ensure it’s actually connecting with your audience.

Ultimately, you just want to cut out the content that doesn’t work, increase the content that drives engagement, and send as much traffic to your website as possible.

If you want more engagement and traffic, you need to better understand your social channel’s analytics tools.

This is key for two main reasons:

It helps you understand more about your audience – who are they and where are they coming from?

It shows you how your followers are engaging with your posts – are you putting out content that people actually want to engage with?

By digging out the answer to these questions, you’re able to share updates that resonate with your target audience. Who doesn’t want that?!

Below, I have the lowdown on how to use analytics to check how your LinkedIn and Google+ pages are performing.

Let’s start with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Analytics: What You Need to Know

So, how do you gauge the effectiveness of your LinkedIn activity?

Similar to the social media channels in my previous post, LinkedIn analytics are represented in impressions and engagement.

Note: Currently, you can only get insights on company pages.

Now, if you’re the administrator of your company page, you’ll have access to a significant amount of data on your page’s performance. To find that data, follow the steps below:

When you get to your company page, click the Analytics tab. Here you’ll see an overview of your analytics, and you can delve in further by selecting the Visitors, Updates or Followers tab from the drop-down.

There are lots of metrics here and it can get confusing. What should you pay attention to?

Well, try these on for size:

1. Within the Followers and Visitors section, you can learn a lot about your audience. Here you’ll see demographic details, including industry, function, and your audience’s professional background.

You can use this data to learn more about what your audience may be interested in. For example, if your audience is mainly 35 to 45 year old executives of marketing companies, you’d want to share more content related to marketing, such as the content found on Adobe’s CMO magazine.

2. In the updates section, you can see what posts your followers have engaged with.

You can use this data to learn what content your followers already like based on what you’ve already shared. Then all you have to do is share more of that kind of content!

3. By viewing individual post performance, you can decide whether you want to promote an update so that it reaches more of your followers. You can also view how many followers were gained through paid advertising.

For more details on how to use LinkedIn analytics, check out this guide.

Google+ Analytics: What You Need to Know

Curious about how well you’re doing with your efforts on Google+?

If you want a detailed report, you’re not getting it from Google+. The data they currently supply is basic, to say the least.

Earlier this year, Google+ launched a new feature called ‘Your Influence’. You can find this on your Google+ page if you click on the three dots right next to the About button.

Under ‘Your influence’, you can view a snapshot of analytics for your profile for the last 7 or 30 days, including:

Number of people who’ve followed your profile

Number of people who’ve followed your collections

Amount of times your posts have been viewed, commented on and how many times your posts have received a ‘+1’ (Google+ version of a ‘like’)

How many times your posts have been shared and subsequently viewed and commented upon.

The pros are that it’s easy to access, and you can get a quick snapshot of all the basic data in one place.

The major negative of it is the lack of detail in the data available. You can’t see trends as there are no charts, and you can’t see any insights about your audience. You also can’t see any post level analytics, which is something that proves really valuable when deciding what content is resonating with your audience.

Also, it’s not live – the data can take up to 48 hours to update. The feature isn’t currently available on the Android Google+ app as yet. You’ll have to visit the desktop site to gather your data.

Nevertheless, you have the basic data to monitor your content’s performance on a weekly basis – so it is still definitely worth using. Hopefully, this is a feature that Google+ will be improving upon in the future to bring up to par with LinkedIn and Facebook.

Conclusion

It’s important to keep your finger on the pulse of your analytics to measure the impact of your social media marketing efforts. You need to understand which tactics are working, and which aren’t.

How? Incorporate regular social media reporting into your schedule to analyze the data. Keep a close eye on trends, replicate what is successful, remove what isn’t and use any audience insights to inform your content plans.

How regularly do you check your analytics? And will you be doing so more frequently in the future? Comment below and let us know!

If you don’t yet have a grasp on analytics, don’t worry – that’s what this guide is for. We’ll go over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as some key things to look for that you can check on any social media channel.

Let’s get started.

Social Media Analytics Terms & Meanings

Before I dive into the individual analytics platforms, I want to cover the common terms you’ll see and what they mean:

Reach: the number of people who see your content.

Impressions: the number of times your content is displayed.

Engagement: the number of interactions people have with your content (i.e.: likes, comments, shares, retweets, etc.)

You’ll see these three terms across every analytics dashboard for every social platform. Now, let’s start with Facebook.

Facebook Analytics: What You Need to Know

First things first – to get the most out of your Facebook analytics, you need to install the Facebook pixel on your site. While you can see some data without it, it’s very limited.

This is where you’ll navigate to the various reports to view your data. While I recommend playing around with all the reports to develop a deeper understanding of them, there is one that’s important to know about:

Funnels.

Funnels are the best way to understand the steps your audience takes in going from a Facebook fan to interacting with your content, and finally to visiting your site and even converting into a lead or a sale.

You can create those funnels by going to the “Funnels” tab under “Activities”, then clicking “Create Funnels” in the upper right corner.

Some types of funnels you can create:

Users who messaged your Facebook page then made a purchase on your website or became a subscriber

Users who installed an app then made a purchase on your website or became a subscriber

Users who reacted a certain way (such as “Love”, “Wow!” or “Haha”) then made a purchase or became a subscriber

Users who commented on a certain Facebook post then made a purchase or became a subscriber

Pretty cool, right?

Once you run these funnels and see which actions cause users to convert – such as commenting, messaging your page, or putting a “Haha” on a post – you can prioritize getting more of those actions from your users!

For more details on how to use your Facebook analytics, check out this guide.

Now let’s take a quick look at Twitter.

Twitter Analytics: What You Need to Know

Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn’t have a fancy pixel. Their analytics are also far less advanced. But, it’s still important to understand how to derive actionable insights from Twitter’s data.